Qatar customs seize 18kg of marijuana and 84 gold bars

11 Apr 2016 - 16:11

Doha: Customs officials in Qatar confiscated a huge amount of narcotic substances from a personal shipment from an African country recently.
In another unrelated event the customs authorities caught an Asian passenger trying to smuggle in 6.5kg gold bars hidden inside his clothes through the Hamad International Airport.
Ahmed bin Ali Al Mohannadi, President of the General Administration of Customs, honoured the inspectors who were responsible for these major drug and gold hauls.
The drug haul happened due to a diligent cargo employee who felt something suspicious about the personal cargo from the African country, which was packaged in a very unusual way.
This prompted the authorities to cross-examine the cargo with special devices and later conducted a thorough manual inspection, during which they discovered 17.8kg of Marijuana inside food containers. Food items were mixed with dried marijuana fibre to dupe the authorities. But due to prompt action the attempt was thwarted.
The gold bars were seized from an Asian traveller by the customs officials at the Hamad International Airport. An Asian traveller coming from one of the Gulf state declared a small amount of gold and was allowed to do the proper paper work for transiting it through Qatar.
While he was doing his paperwork, an inspector felt suspicious about the contents of the bag and on inspection found small wrapped parcels hidden inside the clothes at the bottom of the bag. There were more such parcels on the right and left pockets of his bag.
84 gold pieces weighing 6.5 kg with were seized from his bag, which will value in excess of QR600,000 at the current market price.